1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrically rewritable non-volatile semiconductor storage device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, LSIs are formed by integration of devices in a two-dimensional plane on a silicon substrate. Although a typical way of increasing memory capacity is to reduce (miniaturizing) a dimension of an element, recent years are facing challenges in such miniaturization from the viewpoint of cost and technology. Such miniaturization requires further improvements in photolithography technology. However, the costs of lithography process are ever increasing. In addition, even if such miniaturization is accomplished, it is expected that physical characteristic of an element such as a breakdown voltage between elements, would reach a limit unless a driving voltage of the element can be scaled. That is, it is likely that difficulties would be encountered in device operation itself.
Therefore, semiconductor storage devices have been proposed recently where memory cells are arranged in a three-dimensional manner to achieve improved integration of memory devices (see, Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-266143).
One of the conventional semiconductor storage devices where memory cells are arranged in a three-dimensional manner uses transistors with a cylinder-type structure. Those semiconductor storage devices using transistors with the cylinder-type structure are provided with multiple conductive layers corresponding to gate electrodes and pillar-like columnar semiconductors. Each columnar semiconductor layer serves as a channel (body) part of a respective transistor. Memory gate insulation layers are provided around the columnar semiconductor layers. Such a configuration including these conductive layers, a columnar semiconductor layer, and a memory gate insulation layer is referred to as a “memory string”.
In these semiconductor storage devices with three-dimensional structures, to achieve improved integration, it is desirable to increase the number of memory cells formed in each memory string (or, the number of memory cells laminated) as much as possible. However, there is a problem that a read operation becomes more difficult due to the reduction in reading current as one memory string includes more memory cells and columnar semiconductors becomes longer.